According to industrial designer Douglas Schaller, “the bicycle theft industry is at least $393 million annually in the United States and the crime costs Americans between $800 and $1 billion.” That problem was the reason for the Bicycle Lock Dock, a 2009 team student design project led by Schaller along with Cassie Tweed, Seung Kim, Mike Koplaw, Andrew Waterbury, and Jun Imaizumi. The design was created for San Jose State University, and the idea was to “emphasize security through positioning in open areas, creating available and convenient locking locations.”

The curved racks allow for multiple locking points, and the central towers feature LED lights for visibility and security. The towers can also be used as informational kiosks to inform students of campus happenings, and/or can be used as a source of revenue, with two approximately 280 square inch ads.

6 Comments

The concpet of positioning the bike rack in center of attention, below an Ad and proper lighting system is a good idea, yet they have to think more about a solution to use that space more efficiently. the circular array of bikes takes a lot of space.

Thinking about it, most bike theft seems to involve cutting the lock. Most of these ingenious ideas have the lock integrated in the bike, so they’re looking at lightweight solutions. As far a locks go, heavyweight is best.

Has anyone thought of putting the locking bit as part of the bike stand? As well as ‘bring your own padlock’ options what about RFID similar to bike hire schemes, or coin op? A second lock could be used in addition but this would only really need to retain the wheels.

It would solve the dillema of convenient, light, stylish locks (like the examples above) vs. locks which are genuinely had to break (big Ds). In London only one of these options means you keep your bike.

I have a big D which sits in my pannier and weighs several kgs. I used to have a ‘heavy duty’ cable lock with armoured rings but when the plastic got chipped water got in, then one day it literally fell apart in my hands after the cable rusted away!

Are there any designers out there that, you know, actually look into the details of what kind of security a bike needs? I look at those last two and all I see are easily stolen wheels (at a minimum). And the first one certainly seems to throw up a lot of metal that doesn’t actually serve any real security value compared to simpler alternatives.

90% of the “innovation” that I could use would come in the form of a cable already attached to a standard rack. The lock would go through the front wheel and frame per usual, and the cable could wind through the back wheel and frame before being secured by the lock. Done. No need to redesign bikes or build gigantic evil parking spiders.

The best lock is electronically capturing every bike thief every time. All the poor people have tracked phones, no? Once, captured, then give them chewing gum with 150 mg of healthy adult male facial skin surface lipid by mouth to cure their pheromone deficiency–the only real biological cause for property theft. I’m about 500 years early with this, but hey, I thought I’d give the neanderthallers a shot, eh?

While the lighted, bicycle parking kiosks are not space efficient, my first thought was that each station could have a number, so that if scores of bikes were parked, a rider would have to remember only one number to find their bicycle among 7 or eight rather than dozens and dozens. Looking a photos of hundreds of bikes locked along longitutal racks in Sweden and China makes me think they could stand to have sectional numbers, too.

On additional thought, a cage or locker or box with padlock or key locking would be best, and not as expensive to produce as the kiosk.